J. Edward Swan II

The Effects of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Motion Parallax on Egocentric Depth Perception

J. Adam Jones, J. Edward Swan II, Gurjot Singh, Eric Kolstad, and Stephen R. Ellis. The Effects of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Motion Parallax on Egocentric Depth Perception. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization (APGV 2008), pp. 9–14, August 2008. DOI: 10.1145/1394281.1394283.

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Abstract

As the use of virtual and augmented reality applications becomes more common, the need to fully understand how observers perceive spatial relationships grows more critical. One of the key requirements in engineering a practical virtual or augmented reality system is accurately conveying depth and layout. This requirement has frequently been assessed by measuring judgments of egocentric depth. These assessments have shown that observers in virtual reality (VR) perceive virtual space as compressed relative to the real-world, resulting in systematic underestimations of egocentric depth. Previous work has indicated that similar effects may be present in augmented reality (AR) as well. This paper reports an experiment that directly measured egocentric depth perception in both VR and AR conditions; it is believed to be the first experiment to directly compare these conditions in the same experimental framework. In addition to VR and AR, two control conditions were studied: viewing real-world objects, and viewing real-world objects through a head-mounted display. Finally, the presence and absence of motion parallax was crossed with all conditions. Like many previous studies, this one found that depth perception was underestimated in VR, although the magnitude of the effect was surprisingly low. The most interesting finding was that no underestimation was observed in AR.

Additional Information

Acceptance rate: 55% (23 out of 42)

BibTeX

@InProceedings{APGV08-edp, 
  author =      {J. Adam Jones and J. Edward {Swan~II} and Gurjot Singh and Eric Kolstad 
                 and Stephen R. Ellis}, 
  title =       {The Effects of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Motion Parallax 
                 on Egocentric Depth Perception}, 
  booktitle =   {Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Applied Perception in 
                 Graphics and Visualization (APGV 2008)}, 
  year =        2008, 
  location =    {Los Angeles, California, USA}, 
  date =        {August 9--10}, 
  month =       {August}, 
  pages =       {9--14}, 
  note =         {DOI: <a target="_blank"
                  href="https://doi.org/10.1145/1394281.1394283">10.1145/1394281.1394283</a>.} 
  abstract =    { 
As the use of virtual and augmented reality applications becomes more common, 
the need to fully understand how observers perceive spatial relationships grows 
more critical.  One of the key requirements in engineering a practical virtual or 
augmented reality system is accurately conveying depth and layout.  This 
requirement has frequently been assessed by measuring judgments of egocentric 
depth.  These assessments have shown that observers in virtual reality (VR) 
perceive virtual space as compressed relative to the real-world, resulting in 
systematic underestimations of egocentric depth.  Previous work has indicated 
that similar effects may be present in augmented reality (AR) as well. 
This paper reports an experiment that directly measured egocentric depth 
perception in both  VR and AR conditions; it is believed to be the first 
experiment to directly compare these conditions in the same experimental 
framework.  In addition to VR and AR, two control conditions were studied: 
viewing real-world objects, and viewing real-world objects through a 
head-mounted display.  Finally, the presence and absence of motion parallax was 
crossed with all conditions. Like many previous studies, this one found that 
depth perception was underestimated in VR, although the magnitude of the effect 
was surprisingly low. The most interesting finding was that no underestimation 
was observed in AR. 
}, 
}